Power Grabbing

There's the Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty making itself popular among the voting public again. The wonder of it all is that voters have such absurdly short memories. We become angry over being manipulated and taxed endlessly with little to show for disappearing tax dollars, yet the affable, self-assured and foxy McGuinty just goes on his merry way, confabbing with his confreres to think of new ways to extract even more funds from a provincial population near the exasperation-breaking point.

So why is it that this man, giddy with the power that a majority government has gifted him with, and the additional assurance due to the general ineffectiveness of the opposition parties, certain to be re-elected? Ah, it's because the electorate finds it difficult to place their trust in the alternatives, none of whom have, of late, seen to be in a position to demonstrate their potential effectiveness at governing? Well, actually, isn't it past time to throw the rascals who now govern this province out of power?

Can the alternatives do any worse than McGuinty's government, which in the guise of careful stewardship of the province's resources, has been squeezing us beyond endurance? Of course, should they prove to be even worse than this government we always have the option of spinning the wheel to disencumber ourselves four years down the road. And seek another cosmopolitan power-hungry brute to run amok. Such is the nature of politics, and such is the politics of petty dictators in the guise of democratically-elected politicians.

They know what's best for us and we'd better believe it. We'd better, on the way to believing that, not recall to mind the criminally wasteful initiatives that they in their great wisdom have embarked upon, resulting in costly failures of design, purpose and control of free-spending bureaucrats. Off with their heads and bring in another program head; they'll get it right eventually. Or they won't. Time is weighing heavily on the 'won't' side, alas.
The latest waste of tax funds, $2-billion-worth of smart meters haven't been too intelligent an investment.

The thing of it is, people lead busy, distracting lives, and they tend to shepherd their time as carefully as they can manage to, and that includes conducting energy-consuming (in every sense of that light phrase) tasks at times of day that suit their busy agendas. Most people would prefer not to stay up late into the night to take 'advantage' of evening or night-time hours when energy use is low. We're stuck in a kind of needily-obsessive pattern of convenience. But, observes Premier McGuinty and his advisers, there's a very handy solution to that kind of recalcitrance.

Dramatically decrease the price of off-peak-hours energy usage, and pump up the increase in cost of peak energy use-time. Chuckle, chuckle; the quiet agenda being that it's a win-win for the government in full knowledge that people cannot and will not bleary-eyed and cursing, inconveniently use their energy-hogging appliances deep into the night.

And here we have the erroneous impression that we've been hard done by. Small business owners and home owners, take heed: we haven't seen anything yet, the best is yet to come...